At the Heart of a Hollow Parade
by enakoritsi
Summary: FrostIron. Still-breathing ghosts, an unwanted connection, and blood on a golden floor. When Loki plays the right card and Tony finds himself tangled in an unexpected crisis, there isn't anywhere to go but up. Literally. Post-Avengers.


At the Heart of a Hollow Parade

_Prologue_

* * *

"You may chide me all you wish with your sanctimonious morality, but you know as well as I that no one would shed a tear should a monster fall."

* * *

People think that Tony is predictable because he is unpredictable in all the most expected ways. Buttons will always be pushed; paper boundaries will always be rushed through to leave two razed butterfly wings behind. And Tony will stand there in the midst of all the destruction with a cocksure smile on his face, his head tilted slightly and already racing toward the future.

There are realities and there are masks, masks that are as real as the skin painted over each body and others that are as crumbling as a levy beyond repair. This is something Tony has always known and taken advantage of. The intricacies of the world always had belonged to him, and Tony's never been the type to share.

Except-Tony wonders, where does the ball go when the field has been defiled, when the man at the plate with gold encrusted hands and all-seeing eyes finds himself struck dumb and staring into nothing? When the king throws open his doors and, for the very first time, finds himself blind; then where does the omnipotent weakling go?

Tony wonders these things while no one believes he could ever be pondering them, just as he likes it and always will. He is no stranger to weighty questions, but these are of a new breed, and, for once, he would have rather have remained ignorant. These are the inquiries of the mind blown wide, for Tony has seen the far-out reaches of everything he thought wondrous, and he had no choice but to destroy it all.

But this is not Tony. It's not his way at all. So, he fills his chest with enough air to keep himself lighthearted, gets all the pieces put away at the end of the day, watches people head off in too many directions, and starts putting his life back together. He tries, very hard, which is something to say for someone who has so often found the answers simply too easy. When he allows himself a few moments, to think about the unthinkable, Tony loves and hates it all.

Until the day when the world peels back to laugh at the one who thought himself safe.

Until the sudden clanking of upset metal turns Tony away from his screens, cheeseburger falling from his hands.

When Tony glances over, catches the oiled neck of a wrench clattering along the floor, there is a hunched over figure trembling with one hand clinging to the table. It takes but a moment for the body to flicker the way a flame does, in and out, when an overeager child blows an impatient jet of air. Tony only recognizes the black sheen of leather and a flash of pale skin, thin lips gasping for air, before the image disappears. The rusty sound of a choked breath stops halfway through, stilted against his ears, and Tony scrunches his nose and tries to remember if he'd had a significant number of drinks today. Rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, Tony asks JARVIS to set the speakers back to maximum volume. While he works, his body trembles from the weight of every wail of bass and dominating rush of sound, and Tony pretends that he is fine.

A few days later, when he takes a moment he shouldn't to stare out of the gaping hole that still marks the front of his tower, Tony hears that same wet breath. He turns around, even though he doesn't want to, even though every pulse of his body howls_ stopstopstopno_, and the same image from his lab is staggering over the uneven debris of his floor. He hasn't had the opportunity to piece it back together, isn't sure how he might want to commemorate the alien-god imprint etched into the decor (although he's considering donating it to a children's museum for kicks), and a little nagging part of his brain is glad now that its still in shambles.

Because now that he has more than a few milliseconds, Tony can see that it's definitely Loki bent over, one knee planted firmly on the ground for balance. With a brief wisp of amusement, Tony notes that the hand that appears to be keeping Loki from faceplanting onto the ground is balanced in the middle of the imprint left from his own head. There's the thick sound of Loki swallowing, and while the "god" pushes himself into an, albeit swaying, standing position, Tony stuffs his hands into his pockets until his wrists are barely visible and straightens his shoulders.

The clothes haven't changed much, still the same wisps of acerbic green bundled within the protective hold of a thicker black. It's Loki who seems to have withered inside of them, his skin the texture of aged type-writer sheets, thin and abused at the bottom of an archive's vault.

"Didn't realize you two had made such a profound bond," Tony blurts out, and Loki's head (ah, the hair is longer, too) whips up toward the sound as though he had just noticed the man's presence; now that Tony has caught a glimpse of his wild eyes, he wishes that he hadn't. One of his eyebrows lifts in confusion, but when Tony gestures lazily toward the floor, Loki snarls and labors quite obviously to strengthen his stance.

"Aren't you a bit far from home, big guy?" Tony inquires before Loki can form any comprehensible words, strolling toward the bar to release the nervous energy drumming under his skin; the metal of the bracelets barely catch the light, partially hidden in denim. But Loki's eyes catalog his every step, and before Tony can get even halfway across the room, he bites out, "Stark!"

Tony keeps walking, looking over his shoulder with just a moment to spare. Loki's left hand is lifted in an abortive gesture, his eyes open far too wide and his lips working nothing but air. Then he's gone, not with the bizarre "signal lost, signal gained" of a 70s television, but in a rapid burst of golden light that erupts past Tony's eyelids and sets everything aglow. Tony shakes his head, blinking repeatedly until everything comes back into focus.

There's no Norse wannabe shaking in the middle of his repairs, but Tony finishes his trek and gulps down a drink just the same.

That night, Tony lies in bed staring at nothing and seeing everything he always thought he would've wanted to see. Pepper's doing his job somewhere that the back of his mind could name, and a few hours after the Loki incident, his phone had blinked with a hopeful, but knowing spark. He'd taken the phone into his hand, the glass cool against his fingers, but sickness crawled up his throat, and Tony didn't-doesn't-want to talk to Pepper like that, never like that.

Instead, he passes the day planning for repairs that he wishes he had the motivation to set into motion, all until he can throw himself onto his bed and stare blankly at the ceiling in the way that has become routine.

There are itches at the back of his mind, like parasites crawling and sliming their way over the treasury of his brain. They never bite, never burrow down, never cause inherent damage. They just move, setting him wild and uncertain, constantly wishing he could scour himself clean of everything evil that's touched his skin, wants to reach the inside, too. When he closes his eyes, Tony can only watch as shrieks and wailing crawl into his ears, flashes of nothingness and all he thought he had stopped himself from ever being again. Death settles over him with the generosity of a gift, but it's the sort of gift no one ever wants and cannot find a way to say so. The words stick to Tony's tongue, and the longer he allows himself to wait, the more he knows the clock is ticking down.

He tries to think about Loki's abrupt appearances, giving himself a riddle to shake around and conquer, now that he's starting to believe it's something more substantial than an alcohol-induced blip. But the whispers under his skin promise that it's just another side-effect, another way he's losing it as no one has before, and so Tony shoves a pillow over his face and tries not to push down too hard.

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own and do not claim to own any aspect of the franchises tied to Marvel. All I possess are my words.

Author's Note: This is shaping up to be a loose adaptation incorporating elements of, along with other Marvel films/comics, Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 (inspiration will come more heavily from the Thor 2 side though). There will be FrostIron.

I'll admit this is my first return to fanfiction after four years or so. Let me know if I still have it, and I'll keep giving it a go. :)


End file.
